Hi Rick! Huge fan of Pro-Mark Sticks, currently inbetween DC9, Abe Cunningham signatures and Zildjian Mike Mangini signature sticks. Can't decide between these 3, but i'm leaning towards the Mangini's, because they are sized like a 5A, longer (like the abe signatures) but heavy like the DC9's! - I Also use Firth MS4's for my practice pad (love them!)
Not the biggest fan of Evans heads however, I think Evans ideas are great! (emad, ec2 etc) as well as the Puresound wire ideas (actually i'll have to thank puresound, they were the only company i could find that make the snare strand for my 70's imperial star snare drum.), but over here in Australia I last herd there was some issue with the distributer? Or at least with my local shop. I've liked remo's sound, but i've found their coating lasts about as long as my concentration span for 1 practice session (somewhere between 2 and 4 hours). Seeing as i've only really encountered Evans briefly on friends kits i've can't really make a decision, but i've heard their coating is great, but the actual tone doesn't last as long.
So i now use aquarian drum heads, and i've found their coating and tone lasts much longer than my experiences with Remo, and i also really like aquarians ideas with drum heads, especially with stuff like the super kick and their "vented" muffle ring on heads such as Focus-X.